(05-01) 19:30 PDT Oakland —
Oakland police clashed repeatedly with Occupy activists Tuesday, firing tear gas canisters and flash-bang grenades at several hundred protesters near City Hall in brief but volatile skirmishes that escalated as quickly as they dissipated.
Some protesters shoved against police lines with black shields bearing an “A” for anarchy. Some threw objects at officers, surrounded police cars and pounded on them. In one case, a protester dressed in black threatened an officer with a pole.
But many protesters remained peaceful, throwing flowers at the cops’ feet or marching peacefully with children in the Fruitvale District, vowing to avoid the violence downtown.
The daylong series of events on May Day was held throughout parts of Oakland, San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area by a wide range of protest groups, including Occupy, to honor International Workers’ Day and denounce economic inequities.
In Oakland in particular, the mood was tense from the beginning, despite the range of events that went from peaceful rallies to confrontations and vandalism.
“The tempo of the crowd was a lot more assertive, a lot more aggressive” than in past demonstrations involving Occupy groups, Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan said in an afternoon press conference. He said the mood was so volatile that by 9 a.m. he had called for mutual aid from about a half-dozen area law enforcement agencies.
Source: sfgate.com
Inquiries on Violence at Occupy Protests Moving Slowly
More than four months after an Occupy demonstration shut down the Port of Oakland and devolved into violence, at least nine separate investigations into the ways police officers dealt with the protests in Oakland and on University of California campuses in Davis and Berkeley remain unresolved.
Many of the investigations have been delayed for reasons that range from a court challenge to the difficulty of scheduling meetings with college students. And while people on both sides of the Occupy issue applaud the efforts, experts said the sheer number of investigations could be counterproductive.
There is a danger that excessive investigation “can actually lead to greater obfuscation, because no one understands what each investigation is doing,” said Linda Lye, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which is representing protesters in lawsuits against Oakland and U.C. Davis. “Delay is always a concern, because it can lead to diminished public interest and distraction.”
At U.C. Davis, where a campus policeman pepper-sprayed a group of seated students and others on Nov. 18, a task force report was expected last week. However, a judge granted a temporary restraining order at the request of the police union. A hearing is scheduled for Friday in Alameda County Superior Court.
At U.C. Berkeley, several groups are reviewing the events of Nov. 9, when campus police jabbed demonstrators with batons and dragged two protesters, including a professor, to the ground by their hair. The professor, Celeste Langan, was one of five people charged by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office last week with misdemeanor resisting arrest in connection with the protest.
Lt. Eric Tejada of the U.C. Berkeley police said the results of one investigation were expected “any day now.”
Meanwhile, a report by U.C. Berkeley’s Police Review Board, initially expected in January, may now be finished in April. “We had a subcommittee of five people,” said Jesse Choper, a professor at the university’s law school and chairman of the review board. “Two of them are students. It’s very hard to get meetings together.”
In Oakland, investigators are working through hundreds of complaints of police misconduct, many of them related to Scott Olsen, the Iraq war veteran who sustained a fractured skull during a protest on Oct. 25. Mr. Olsen’s lawyer, Mark Martel, told The Bay Citizen this week that Oakland police had acknowledged that a bean bag round hit Mr. Olsen in the head. It is still not clear who fired the shot.
“I think that it’s been plenty of time by now,” Mr. Martel said. “It doesn’t take five months to find out who shot him.”
Sgt. Chris Bolton, the Oakland Police Department’s chief of staff, said his department was reviewing hundreds of videos, documents and other evidence related to Occupy protests on Oct. 25 and Nov. 2.
“I don’t want anyone to think that it’s ever our hope or intention to let things die down and never address it,” Sgt. Bolton said. “We have never backed down from telling people that where appropriate we will investigate, and we will hold ourselves and each other accountable. So at some point those investigations will conclude.”
Source: The New York Times
The Battle of Oakland
A really great documentation of the events that unfolded between protesters and the police in Oakland on Jan. 28, 2012.
Occupy Oakland Mass Arrest Leads to Only 12 Charges
The largest Alameda County mass arrest in 30 years has led to only 12 criminal charges.
A total of 409 people were arrested January 28th during an Occupy Oakland demonstration that devolved into clashes between police and protesters. Of those 409, only 12 were charged with crimes by Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley.
That is a 3% success rate!
Eleven demonstrators were issued a stay away order, which means they face legal action if found within 300 feet of Oakland City Hall or the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, which was the focal point of Saturday’s protest.Of the 12 charges, 4 were felonies and 8 were misdemeanors. None of the alleged felons are Oakland residents.
Even the court system knew these people were not in violation of the law. That means a riot army descended upon citizens with gas and clubs when, largely, there was nothing illegal or actionable being done by the people
(via occupyallstreets)
Source: occupyallstreets
About 300 people were arrested Saturday in Oakland during a chaotic day of Occupy protests that saw demonstrators break into City Hall. Anarchists scuffled with police after police fired tear gas and bean bags to disperse hundreds of people after some threw rocks and bottles and tore down fencing outside a nearby convention center.
You can tell Monopoly is an old game because there is a Luxury Tax and rich people can go to jail.
Source: thepeoplesrecord
Oakland PD Used Violent Cops Against Occupy
Records reveal that the #OPD put officers with histories of using deadly force on the frontlines during Occupy Oakland protests.
Source: sweetgirlgone
#OO #OPD slams woman and her bike to the ground
During a march in Oakland on January 7, 2012, a woman and her bike were shoved to the ground. She was then surrounded by several OPD who pulled out billy clubs and pummeled her and her bike. A group of fellow protesters screamed at the cops and ran to her rescue. Though she was pulled away from the grips of the police, she and the group were chased down the street. Moments after this footage, the entire group of protesters on this street were quarantined and illegally detained there for 10 minutes before being released…since they did nothing illegal.
Police Arrest Twelve Oakland Protesters from Occupied Foreclosed Home
Twelve protesters were arrested Dec. 29th when Oakland police removed activists who had occupied a foreclosed property in West Oakland, police said.
The property, located at 1415 and 1417 Tenth St., is listed as a foreclosed property for sale on several real estate websites and was occupied by activists from Occupy Oakland and Causa Justa. Activists with Causa Justa said the building had been occupied since an “Occupy Our Homes” day of action on Dec. 6 and had hosted as many as 60 people for a meeting on fighting home foreclosures.
“This is one of several properties in Oakland that are being squatted and occupied,” journalist and Occupy Oakland protester Spencer Mills said. ”This was the most publicized of the homes being occupied currently by Occupy Oakland and other groups.”
After removing the protesters, work crews boarded up the vacant house’s doors and windows.
In the same neighborhood, police removed protesters camping in a vacant lot in the 2000 block of Peralta Street on Wednesday. Protesters had started setting up camp in the private lot, however after consulting with the property owner police moved in and removed the protesters, arresting one and citing 14.
Source: baycitizen.org
Why shut down the West Coast Ports?
The ports play a pivotal role in the flow and growth of capital for the 1% in this country and internationally. For that reason alone it is the ideal place to disrupt their profit machine. The workers on these ports have always understood that; they have consistently staged shutdowns for political reasons, honored community picket lines, and led the labor movement. A general disruption of commerce, in protest of the nationally coordinated attacks on Occupy movements alone is warranted, but additionally, the specifically targeted attacks on workers at these ports by the 1% further necessitate this call to action. Truck drivers on ports in southern California were fired in a union busting attack when they attempted an organizing campaign. Workers, especially in the Latino community, are organizing a “stay away” to withhold labor on December 12, the day of Our Virgin Of Guadalupe. Occupy LA voted to also blockade the SSA ports, owned by Goldman Sachs. In solidarity, Occupy Oakland voted unanimously to expand this call to all of the West Coast ports. After tens of thousands shut down the port of Oakland in solidarity with ILWU Local 21 in Longview, Washington’s struggle against EGT, the first ship still approaches the port. The workers and their families have been beaten, pepper sprayed, and arrested by police armed with tear gas, rubber and live ammunitions, in order to protect EGT’s flow of capital. The power of the workers to act collectively to disrupt production on the ports will be seriously compromised by any penetration of the ILWU’s West Coast stronghold. If EGT is successful, other ports may follow and these attacks could spread to other worker organizations. As the ILWU motto states, “An injury to one is an injury to all!” We must show that workers will not tolerate attacks on ourselves, our families, or our communities. We will maintain our collective power and right to organize. Why are the Occupy movements involved in these struggles? The 1% has been able to write and pass labor laws that are designed to restrict the amount of action that can legally be taken by a union. Most union officials today refuse to challenge those laws. Officially, they will distance themselves from actions that may lead to legal attacks as the ILWU International Office is currently, publicly doing. Whether this is due to leadership corrupted by the system or fear of litigation they believe will weaken their union, it is the responsibility of rank and file workers and their allies to escalate the labor struggle. Occupy can spearhead this movement. We are working people. We are here to fight the disparity of our system as is/should be the intent of organized labor. We have no leaders to jail, sue, intimidate or corrupt. We organize, we mobilize, we fight, we occupy, we win!
Source: ainrialai
![An Oakland police officer who shot an Occupy protester/journo with a beanbag last month has been removed from street duty along with his supervisor, pending an investigation.
Police officials have released few details about the Nov. 3 incident in which Scott Campbell, 30, was hit in the leg with a nonlethal beanbag. The Oakland resident uploaded his video to YouTube, did national television appearances and sued the Police Department in federal court.
The sources said the incident was the subject of an internal affairs investigation of the officer who fired the beanbag as well as his supervisor, Capt. Ersie Joyner III. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe is a confidential personnel matter.
Despite the internal affairs probe, Campbell said no one from the Police Department had contacted him.
“I’m surprised they could investigate this incident without talking to me,” he said. “I still find it outrageous that someone would feel it was appropriate to shoot someone who was posing no threat.”
The Police Department’s crowd-control policy says beanbags may be used against people who pose “an immediate threat of loss of life or serious bodily injury to themselves, officers or the general public.”
Officers who fire beanbags must do so “under the direction of a supervisor,” the policy says, and a person struck by a beanbag “shall be transported to a hospital.”
Campbell states that the police did not attempt to aid him. Instead, a medic from Occupy Oakland gave him ice before others helped him into a taxi. He said he saw a doctor later in the day. [Read More]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lw7m9lFZM71r4gdqgo1_1280.jpg)
An Oakland police officer who shot an Occupy protester/journo with a beanbag last month has been removed from street duty along with his supervisor, pending an investigation.
Police officials have released few details about the Nov. 3 incident in which Scott Campbell, 30, was hit in the leg with a nonlethal beanbag. The Oakland resident uploaded his video to YouTube, did national television appearances and sued the Police Department in federal court.
The sources said the incident was the subject of an internal affairs investigation of the officer who fired the beanbag as well as his supervisor, Capt. Ersie Joyner III. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe is a confidential personnel matter.
Despite the internal affairs probe, Campbell said no one from the Police Department had contacted him.
“I’m surprised they could investigate this incident without talking to me,” he said. “I still find it outrageous that someone would feel it was appropriate to shoot someone who was posing no threat.”
The Police Department’s crowd-control policy says beanbags may be used against people who pose “an immediate threat of loss of life or serious bodily injury to themselves, officers or the general public.”
Officers who fire beanbags must do so “under the direction of a supervisor,” the policy says, and a person struck by a beanbag “shall be transported to a hospital.”
Campbell states that the police did not attempt to aid him. Instead, a medic from Occupy Oakland gave him ice before others helped him into a taxi. He said he saw a doctor later in the day.
[Read More]
Source: sfgate.com
